Although streaming music services are currently duking it out for listeners’ ears, there will always be people out there who insist to their friends, “You know, this actually sounds a lot better on vinyl.” For those folks — as well as many other music fans who enjoy tunes produced by a solid hunk of plastic — Sony has decided to resume pressing vinyl records for the first time since 1989. [More]
what’s old is new again
Sega Jumps On Retro Game Train With Mobile Versions Of Sonic, Altered Beast, Others
By 6.21.17
Perhaps Sega has been paying attention to Nintendo’s recent success with its Mario Run smartphone app — which has been purchased and downloaded hundreds of millions of times since its release in Dec. 2016: The video game company has announced it’ll be bringing back a few retro titles of its own, starting with Sonic the Hedgehog and four other classic games on June 22. [More]
Online Eyeglass Vendor Who Threatened Customers Arrested Again For Running Another Bogus Store
By 5.26.17
You may remember the bizarre tale of Vitaly Borker, the man who served three years in prison for trying to boost his Google search ranking by harassing his customers online. Federal prosecutors say he’s back at it, once again selling eyewear on the internet, and allegedly bullying customers who dare to ask for refunds. [More]
Brewery Revives 2,500-Year-Old Alcoholic Beverage Found In Ancient Burial Plot
By 10.25.16 — Updated: 10.31.16
If you thought making beer out of a 260-year-old recipe was neat, the revival of an alcoholic brew after a few thousand years is probably going to pique your interest: after archaeologists uncovered the remains of an alcoholic beverage in an ancient burial plot, a Milwaukee brewery took up the task of bringing the brew back to life. [More]
Attention, Kmart Shoppers: The Bluelight Special Is Back
By 11.2.15
Sirens are sounding and the blue light is flashing once again at Kmart, as the struggling retailer tries to lure shoppers through its doors and revive its sales: after retiring “Bluelight Specials” in the early ’90s, the chain will once again blast sirens and turn on the blue light to alert shoppers to surprise, 15-minute long deals in its 942 stores. [More]
Vinyl Subscription Service Like The Netflix Of Records, But You Can Buy What You Get
By 1.9.15
While it seems music has moved as far away from the more physical music era of the past — records, cassettes, CDs, etc. — as we stream millions of artists into our ears from wherever we want, whenever we want, some people still like to get their hands on a solid hunk of plastic for their listening pleasure. A new vinyl subscription service is catering to those analog folk with LP deliveries. [More]
Walmart Officially Begins Reselling All Those Video Games You Traded In For Groceries
By 10.28.14
Back in March Walmart launched a program that allows customers to trade in their used video games for store gift cards, you know to buy milk, bread, sweatpants. Now that the mega-retailer likely has a hefty stockpile of said used games it’s ready to resell them, completing its transformation into a bonafide video game reseller. [More]
Pizza Hut Jumps On 1997 Bandwagon With A “New” Cookie Pizza
By 7.14.14
Baking a cookie into a bigger shape than one normally expects for such a dessert is so late ’90s — your birthday party had a “normal” cake instead of a huge chocolate chip cookie with frosting writing on it? Lame! — but that hasn’t stopped Pizza Hut from joining the party now. [More]
McDonald’s Hopes Cheaper Mighty Wings Will Sell Better This Time Around
By 2.26.14
Despite much fanfare and ballyhoo over McDonald’s attempt to woo wing lovers last fall with its Mighty Wings, the almost $1-per-wing price instead led to many customers shunning the fast food chain’s effort. The result of that tepid response was $10 million in frozen, unsold Mighty Wings, an outcome Mickey D’s is hoping to avoid this time around with lower prices. [More]
Pizza Hut To Test Crazy Idea Of Selling Pizza By The Slice
By 1.14.14
Realizing that maybe there’s a limit to the appeal of cheese-injected crusts, Pizza Hut’s latest attempt at remaining relevant to consumers is something that many pizzerias have been doing since before most of us were born — selling pizza by the slice. [More]
Facebook: Again, It Is Impossible For Old Messages To Be Republished As Wall Posts
By 12.13.13
At first upon reading the account of a blogger who believed that old, private messages between her and her Facebook friends were showing up publicly on her timeline, there was that same icky, familiar feeling many Facebook users had last year: Were our most private exchanges suddenly being aired out in a crazy, awful security breach? [More]
Facebook Takes Big Step Backward Toward Traditional Advertising
By 8.15.12
As we predicted back in its pre-IPO days in May, Facebook would need to give up on its current model of minimal and oddly placed ad units if it wanted to survive as a publicly traded company with a value anywhere near what it wants the stock market to think it’s worth. And as that stock price continues to hover at half of the IPO value, the company appears to have taken the first big step toward more traditional advertising, by testing a way for businesses to pay for ads that pop up in the streams of users who did not necessarily “like” that particular advertiser. [More]
House Flipping Is Cool Again, Say Reality TV Producers With Very Short-Term Memories
By 7.25.12
When the housing market went into the toilet in 2008, all of those house-flipping shows that were hits on basic cable went down the drain too. But now that the housing bust is apparently over, reality TV producers seem to think it’s once again high time to dedicate hours of airtime to flipping. [More]
NYC Morphing Practically Unused Pay Phone Kiosks Into Wi-Fi Hotspots
By 7.11.12
When New York City’s Mayor Mike Bloomberg isn’t too busy on his crusade to downsize sugary drinks or rebrand super tiny studio apartments as “micro-units” it turns out he’s been working on a way to turn the city’s practically unused pay phone kiosks into something useful — Wi-Fi hotspots. [More]
Wendy's Testing "Ultra Modern" Redesign With Digital Menu Boards & Fireplaces
By 9.14.11
In the last year, Wendy’s has attempted to upgrade its menu items — skin-on fries with sea salt, real lemonade, better bacon for your burger — so now the fast food mega chain is looking to possibly overhaul its image with a restaurant redesign. [More]
